I know several cases involving lesbians where one gave birth to their child[ren] and once the relationship dissolves, the gestational mother decides she is more of a mother than the other.  BULLSHIT.  I have heard bonding used as a reason for this.  Sure, a baby may bond with its gestational mother first, especially if breast-feeding is involved.  But there is SO much more to parenting than breast-feeding.  What about caring for the breast-feeding mother? Changing diapers? Feeding the adults? Cleaning the house? Rocking? Shushing? Walking? Shared sleep deprivation?  I could go on.

Gestational mothers pulling this shit makes me really angry.  Not only do I feel angry for what they are doing to the non-gestational parent, but I feel angry for what they do to the queer movement.  Recognition of our families is vital for our children to grow up feeling seen and respected.  When they pull this, gestational mothers are saying, “I am really the mother.  Not her.”  Fuck you very much.

My kid didn’t come out of my vagina and he hasn’t ever suckled at my breast, but I am his real mother too.  100%.  Try to prove different.

-Betsy

Here is a list of things TO DO (instead of what NOT to do!) when you encounter a family with a child or children that were adopted, or you suspect were adopted:

1.  DO refrain from any of the following questions, or questions similar to these:

• Was/Is your child adopted?  Even if it is glaringly obvious to you that a child was adopted, ask yourself first why you need to know this information.  If there is no relevancy to your relationship with the child or the parents in knowing if the child was adopted or not, then it doesn’t really matter if the child was adopted or not.  For example, if you see a black child with white parents, asking “Did you adopt him/her?” only serves to point out to the child how obvious it is to strangers that he/she was adopted, and that often makes a child of adoption feel segregated, even if that isn’t your intention.   Your best option is to patiently wait for the family or child to introduce the topic of adoption to conversation, or to ask with sincerity “I’ve always wondered certain things about adoption.  Do you feel comfortable discussing it?” as this doesn’t point out the child as “adopted” and also leaves room for someone to politely decline to discuss adoption, if they don’t wish to.
• Where did you get him/her?  I must admit, for some reason this question is one of my bigger pet peeves!  Once, I answered a woman with “At the black baby store”.  Not a kind or gently educational response, I agree, but this is really not the question you want to lead with, folks.  If you are already in an adoption-related conversation, it’s perfectly fine to ask “Did you adopt domestically or internationally?” and then follow up with “What country did you adopt from?” if it was an international adoption.  However, if you are at Walmart and see a white/Caucasian person with a black/Asian child and you walk up to them squealing about how cute their child is and ask this question, DO be prepared for some serious icy attitude or outright verbal rebuffing.   “Where did you get him/her?” is a question that should be used for things, not people.   It shows a complete lack of appreciation for the process of adoption, as well as the emotional journey of both the child and the parents.
• How much did your adoption/child cost?   The real question here is – why do you need to know?  If you are interested in adoption for yourself personally, the best way to find out the cost is to speak to an agency or an Adoption Practitioner.    Talking about the financial aspect of adoption in front of a child who was adopted only serves to make that child feel like a commodity.   Plus, buying children is illegal, which is sometimes the response I give to that question when I sense somebody is simply being nosy.
• Do you know or meet their “real” mother/father/parents?   I sometimes answer this question with “Of course!  I see her every day in the mirror!” and people usually get it pretty quickly why this question is inappropriate.   DO refer to the woman who gave birth to the child as their “birth mother”.   The mother is the woman the child calls “mom”, most likely the woman with the child, but in some cases, especially for older adoptees who have contact with their birth mother, BOTH mothers are their “real” mothers, and “birth mother” is the best term for distinction between the two.   Same terminology for birth father (Do refrain from asking if we know anything about him, as well).
• Is this your “own” child?  Again, this question is along the same lines as “Is she/he adopted?” but I do try to consider that the person asking may just not fathom that a black (or Asian) child could have a white/Caucasian mother and father.   Unless you are a child’s teacher or school staff and are ensuring you are releasing the child into the right person’s custody, or, you have some private, parents-only information or questions (i.e medical personnel) to share with the parents about the child, then it’s probably not necessary to ask if this is somebody’s “own” child.

2.  DO avoid using the phrase “gave the child up”.   The birth mother did not “give up” their child and in most cases, the adoption plan        that the  birth mother or birth parents made was a difficult decision made with love and consideration for the child’s best well being.  DO consider how hearing that they were “given up” would make a child feel and use the terminology “the birth mother made an adoption plan/decided to have the child adopted by another family” or anything that avoids making the child feel rejected.

3.  DO ignore the fact that the child most likely does not look anything like his or her parent and feel free to discuss the weather, politics, religion or anything other than commenting on which of the parents you think the child looks like, especially if the child is of a different race or skin colour than the parents.   If you must comment on the child’s looks, do tell them they are gorgeous, handsome, cute, adorable – you get the picture.  DO also add in your comments that the child looks/sounds/seems very bright or very kind or something that also acknowledges more than just their looks, so that they don’t feel like their looks are all they have to offer (this can actually apply to ALL kids, not just ones who were adopted!).

4.  DO refer to the child having “been adopted” or “was adopted” as a past-tense verb, not a pronoun or adjective.  Say “Little Suzy WAS adopted” not “Little Suzy IS adopted” because adoption is not a medical condition, and even if it were, people with medical conditions such as diabetes, autism and epilepsy are far more than just diabetics, autistics and epileptics.  Adoption is a process that families go through to become families, it is not a description of who or what a family or a child or adult who was adopted is.

5.  DO use your own imagination about why the child’s birth parent(s) made an adoption plan and leave that question unasked.  That’s private information and often not even known.  Even if it is known, sometimes there are painful details as part of that story, and while it should not be treated as a shameful secret, it is a private part of an adoptee’s history.  DO simply make the assumption that in some way or another, life with the family who adopted them was intended to be in the best interest of the child who was adopted.  That’s really all that matters, isn’t it?

6.  Do talk about how lucky our family is, not how lucky the child we adopted is.  Unless you have some definition of luck that we’ve never heard of, it is not lucky to be separated from your birth parents at any point in your life, or to endure waiting in an orphanage environment, foster home (or worse) for some unknown strangers to come take you away from the only environment you know and sometimes speak to you in a language you don’t understand, nor is it “lucky” to often endure abuse, neglect, malnourishment or dehydration prior to adoption.  Our family is beyond lucky to be blessed with the amazing child that adoption brought to us, NOT the other way around.   While there may have been an element of wanting to help a child who needs a family in some people’s decision to adopt, we are not angels of charity – our primary reason for adopting was to add a child to our family, not to promote ourselves as do-gooders and our child as the “lucky” recipient.

7.  DO empathize that the mother (and father!) may also be sensitive to the loss of fertility, pregnancy experience, birth experience or the loss of all kinds of “firsts” in the child’s life (first smile, first tooth, first steps, first words, etc) depending on the age that the child was adopted at.  DO understand that any kinds of comments about how the adoptive family had their child “the easy way” is an insult and demonstrates ignorance on your part regarding the financial, emotional and sometimes even physical efforts required in an adoption process.

8.  DO keep your comments about pregnancies that happen immediately after adoption to yourself.  Adoption is NOT a fertility treatment, and if we do actually conceive, what we “will do” is welcome that child into our family exactly the same way we welcomed the child that we adopted.  A bio child is not the ultimate prize over a child through adoption and asking such questions in front of our child who was adopted only serves to make them feel that they were the  Plan B consolation prize.

9.  DO be prepared to accept gentle education from some adoptive families.  Our family is one of many that does not take offense to unintentional violations of the above tips, but we do also feel it is our obligation to our daughter and other children of adoption that we politely correct someone if they have said or done something that could possibly hurt or disrespect our child and her family, both adoptive and birth.

10.  DO feel free to open up a respectful conversation about adoption, using the above guidelines. They are not meant as intimidation factors.  We are not ashamed or embarrassed of our adoption and generally most families enjoy talking about most aspects of their adoption journey, although some families do opt to keep certain details private, so do also be prepared to hear “I’m sorry, that’s something we keep private” as a response and respect that.   A great opening line, if you are genuinely interested in adoption, is “I’ve always been curious about adoption and how it works.  Would you mind if I ask some questions?”    If you have a smile on your face and friendly curiosity in your heart (not nosiness in your eyes and mind) than there are few families that won’t share their beautiful, fantastic stories of how their incredible family came together.

Please feel free to share any “DO’s” that I might have missed.

This topic is much like a red rag is to a bull for me (see also previous post “Love and abandonment”) given it is the one tactic that tipped me over the edge and so I am going to expand on it further.

I basically wanted to centre this post around the quote Cassi found which said:

“Birth parents can be wonderful loving people, in fact the most loving people when they do a very loving thing by giving their child to a family.”

WTF?? Are you freaking serious?

Okay, so if I walked up to the next stranger on the street I saw with a baby and asked them to hand it over to me because I would be a better parent for some irrelevant reason like money or whatever, I shouldn’t expect to be “cussed out” or slapped. Rather, I SHOULD expect them, because they apparently love their child so much, to just hand THEIR child, their precious family member, over to me, a complete stranger, just to PROVE they love their child. Sound ridiculous to you? It does to me!! And I know the rest of the world would just think this was some sick joke yet in adoption, this is what mothers and fathers are not only EXPECTED to do but somehow, if they DON’T do it, i.e. if they do what everyone else does in this world and keeps their child, they are abused for it and told they are going to ruin their child’s life.

This concept of proving love by abandoning your child is a one way street. Again, only in the sordid world of adoption, is this lie seen as truth and rammed down the throats of vulnerable and confused pregnant women who only want what is best for their child. The adopters on the other hand are EXPECTED to keep this child and should the real parents DARE to do what was naturally expected of them and ask for their child back well, the adopters are given all of the support whilst the family of the child is kicked to the curb and quite literally shat on in the media.

I have even seen adopters say things like, “I could never give X back, I love him/her to much” and yet the mother would most likely have been told if they truly loved their child they would place them for adoption.

This says two things. One, that love can only be proven by abandoning someone and two, that adopters don’t love the children they adopt (which happens to be true in many cases; (note I didn’t say all!) they love what the children can do FOR them as opposed to the child themselves). Now, I am sure those saying “give up your child to show you really love them” didn’t mean to imply the second point. But they obviously didn’t follow the natural conclusion of this distorted logic.

So if you do take the time to follow this logic through to its conclusion, you see not only how contradictory it is but that it aims to make a lie out of EVERYTHING we know of love and how we feel when we are in love. Since when has abandonment EVER said Love?? In fact, I would say it says quite the opposite… like “what was so wrong with me that he/she didn’t stay/left/gave me away etc?” And, applying it to adoption as in this instance, it also says adoption isn’t really about love because adopters wouldn’t prove the love for the child they adopt by giving him/her up so the whole theory of adoption being this loving option then goes out the window too.

It truly is a ridiculous lie, and a very, very dangerous one.

I wish I had realised this earlier in my brainwashing. I wish I had known this was just a ruse they used to get me to do something I had already said I would NOT do. But sadly, THIS, THIS LIE amongst the threat of her being taken and another lie of a three day trial, tipped the balance for me. Because had I NOT had this lie, I wouldn’t have cared about the three day promise and the threat that if I didn’t sign someone else would. I cannot describe how much I loved and still love my first born. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced and I was told over and over and over etc if I really loved her, really cared for her well being, I would hand her over to a stranger. For me it was the final nail in our coffin. And so I signed. Within hours of her being taken out of my arms, I realised the lie. And thus started my battle to get my daughter back.

I wish I had been a lioness. In the animal kingdom, barring murder or a tranquiliser, if you dared to try and remove a cub from his/her mother, you could safely expect to be torn to shreds. And she would be well within her rights to do so. In fact if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be seen as normal. Yet in the human realm, we treat mothers with so little respect or reverence. They are seen as interchangeable where the desire suits. Replaceable. And this is in direct contrast to how a newborn sees his/her mother. To them they are their world. They KNOW when their mothers, the ones they grew inside are gone. They KNOW. And this hurts them more than we could ever imagine. Yet we still do it in the name of “Love”.

Love. Have we lost the meaning of what love is? Is that what is happening, or has happened? Love is not abandoning one’s child to fulfil the lust of another stranger. Love is not keeping a child from his/her family. Love is not denying a person their name, heritage, family roots. Love is not meant to be conditional. And yet adoption is all these things and more. Follow this through and you see what I see. Love and adoption are worlds apart.

Jack:  “Are you adopted?”

Rachel:  “Yes. Do you know what that means?”

Jack:  “They got you from an orphanage?”

And this question about Rachel’s “real” mother and father:

Jack:  ”Why did they sell you?”

Rachel told him that they didn’t “sell” her, but they gave her away because they weren’t able to take care of her.  Actually, Rachel said to me later, she has no idea if that’s true.  She’s never tried to find her biological mother or father.  “It’s a nice story” she says, about the “they couldn’t take care of me” theory, but it might not be true. 

 ”I would live in a closet if I had to,” she said.  “But I would never give up my children.”

Yes, this happens ALL THE TIME.

The story that has kept me stewing for almost a year and a half, occurred just shortly after our son, H was born.  I was having lunch at work with 3 coworkers and had just recently returned to work from my maternity leave.  They all knew that H joined our family via adoption. 

Of course, Mary starts right in with an adoption story about someone she knows.  The short version of the story is that someone Mary knows is an adoptee.  After Mary’s friend gave birth to her first child, she began searching for her ‘real’ mother so that she could tell her ‘real’ mother that she is a grandmother.  She found her ‘real’ mother.  It was beautiful and wonderful and truly a blessing.  They have a relationship now and one that is quite good.  Blah, Blah, Blah.  (Note:  the term REAL MOTHER was said by Mary no less than 10 times during the telling of the story.)

Anyway, Mary went on and on about how wonderful it was that her friend found her ‘real’ mother.  I just sat there silently throughout the entire monologue as did my other 2 coworkers.  Then Mary said, “Oh.  She still sees the woman that adopted her.  But she’s divorced.”

Huh? 

Double Whammy.

Apparently “the woman who adopted” her is not a ‘real’ mother.  And don’t get me started on the divorce comment.  Apparently you cannot be a real mother if you are divorced.

When I thought Mary was finally to the end of her story, I simply said, “It’s a good thing that I AM H’s REAL mother.”

Mary didn’t say a word.